


and the rocks melt with the sun

by besidemethewholedamntime



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Conversations, F/M, canon compliant to season 6 so far, light mentions of the beginning of s3, post-post reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-13 04:46:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19244107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besidemethewholedamntime/pseuds/besidemethewholedamntime
Summary: "What else was I going to do, exactly? Move on? You have been by my side for this whole time. You are my best-friend, you are my partner. You are my home.”Fitz and Jemma have a conversation about worth. Canon compliant to season 6 so far.





	and the rocks melt with the sun

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!  
> This is just a little thing I cooked up. I'm not exactly sure where it came from but I just felt that it was important that they have this kind of conversation. It's obviously very simplified to what it would actually probably be but I felt I could only go so far. Anyways, I hope you like it!   
> The title is from 'A Red, Red Rose' by Robert Burns.   
> Enjoy!

They get him back. Of course they do. Out of everything, this was the part she least had her doubts about.

Jemma takes a minute, or a hundred, just to enjoy having him back. To feel the familiar weight of his arms around her, to have his soft hands hold hers. It’s as if time slows down and they are the only people in the world who matter. It can’t last forever, she knows, so she enjoys it while she can, knowing how it can all be different tomorrow.

But she has to tell him the truth eventually. It comes from her in bits and pieces over several days. There’s too much… _life_ to fit into one conversation. She has to give him time to process it. She has to prepare herself to even speak it.

The closeness they first enjoyed at the beginning is replaced by something weary. It’s as if he’s forgotten he’s Fitz, that he’s the same man he’s always been, looks as though he wants to crawl out of his own skin. He’s unsure around her, dancing awkwardly around their new situation. In a way it’s reminiscent of the way he was at sixteen, only it was sort of endearing back then.

Nothing about this situation is cute anymore.

And there’s nothing that, really, Jemma can do about it. She lets him know that she’s here for him, that she loves him, but it’s clear the more she hovers, the more uncomfortable he becomes. So she hovers from the shadows, honing all of the skills Melinda May has taught her over the years.

She’s learned the hard way what happens if you don’t pay attention.

It takes a little over a week for him to crack.

They’ve had conversations of course, but briefly. Things such as the plans for the day, or whether or not they need new toothpaste, of all things. Brief and painful conversations that are so obviously awkward it makes her want to scratch her ears until they bleed. But today he sits on the bed, a whole ocean of sheets away from her, typing away on a tablet for a whole five minutes before he sighs deeply and says:

“I just… A year, Jemma? A whole year?”

Jemma puts down her book. Treading gently, she asks, “What?”

His voice is pained. “You were looking for me for a whole year?”

The reminder of the time that she didn’t have him isn’t exactly welcome but she skips the emotion in favour of the straightforward truth. “Yes. We were looking for you for a year.”

“Why?”

Jemma hopes he hasn’t just asked it, but he has, he’s waiting for an answer. He’s taken the pin out of the grenade. Maybe they’ll be able to survive the fallout.

“Are you actually asking me that?”

Her tone must be more acidic than she really meant it to be, for he recoils ever so slightly. Evidently this has been weighing on him, too. “Yeah, I am.”

“Then tell me this, Fitz; if it had been me, what would you have done? If our roles were reversed, if I were the one dead and then not at all, what would you have done?”

She imagines her eyes flashing in the low light of the room while she waits for his answer. Anger burns painfully in her chest, but she lets it anyway. It’s so nice to get to be angry for once, to let something other than guilt and worry and fear eat away at her.

“It’s different and you know it.” His tone is accusatory. “I don’t deserve it, Jemma. I just… don’t.”

The admission doesn’t come with the lost eyes and stricken expression it usually would. It’s a hard fact coming from his mouth now. Just what he thinks is the truth. It doesn’t soften her anger, not even at all. She gets up, needing to pace it out.

“Oh, will you please stop it, Fitz? Just stop it! You are not worth less than me. I am not more than you. What else was I going to do, exactly? Move on? You have been by my side for this whole time. You are my best-friend, you are my partner. You are my home.”

“Jemma…” he breathes her name, like he can’t keep it in anymore. “I wasted a whole year of your life.”

 _“Excuse me?”_ They have reached boiling point. “So, it’s alright for you to spend six months searching for me and work yourself to the bone and become so frustrated you start kicking and screaming at a portal that you transport you to hell in a second, but it’s not for me?” She breathes deeply, quelling the imminent threat of tears. “You could have killed yourself, yet there was no other option for you. Why would you think I’m any different?”

He looks at her, blue eyes she wondered if she’d see again blinking slowly, computing. Eventually, flatly, he says, “Who told you?”

She shrugs. “I heard it from a few people.”

He nods slowly, says nothing. She feels the anger giving way to something else.

“I don’t mean more to you than you mean to me., she tells him quietly, feeling his solemn gaze land on her skin. A deep breath. “You don’t love me more than I love you.”

“Jemma, I’ve never-”

But he cannot finish.

She comes to sit on the bed next to him, gently takes his hands in hers. There are definitely tears now.

“This thing we have, Fitz, is supposed to be equal. The way we feel about each other, the way we love each other… these things are meant to be shared. It can’t go on like this.”

His mouth hangs in a small ‘o’. She feels bad, but she feels worse every time he does something self-sacrificing. He’s not strong enough to live in a world without her, he once said. It should be recorded that she feels exactly the same.

“It just feels like I don’t deserve it, that I don’t deserve you.”

“Feeling it and it being the truth are different things,” she says. “It’s not about deserve. It’s about love. We love each other, we choose to be with each other. That’s it.”

And could she live without him? No. And does she want to? Absolutely not. But if she doesn’t say it now, then she might not until it’s too late and it’s too far gone for anything to be done about it.

“I love you _so much,”_ he tells her, voice hoarse, tears in his eyes. “It’s scary sometimes, how much I do. And it feels like a dream that you know, love me that much, too.”

It’s the scariest thing of all. They have faced robots and monster and aliens and yet love is the thing that frightens her the most. It is scary, she will admit. To know the lengths someone will go for you does funny things to your head.

“I love you, too. And we’ll be okay. I know we will.”

Fitz laughs weakly. “You sound awfully sure about that.”

“We’re together, you see? Everything’s okay as long as we’re together.”

He opens his arms and she falls into them, as seamlessly as she always has. She’s really missed him. It’s beyond lovely to be in his arms again.

“You’re always right, but you’re especially right about that,” he whispers, voice choked, kissing the top of her hair.

His arms around her, the sound of his heartbeat underneath her ear, this is how she knows that they’ll be alright. The worst of it all is past, and all that is left is the bright promise of the future before them. One that she just has to believe in.

“I love you,” he tells her again, squeezing her tightly.

“I love you.” She snuggles further into him. “and you better believe you deserve it. I won’t accept anything else.”

She feels him chuckle. “I’ll keep trying.”

“That’s all I ask.”

They’re together and they’re trying. They’ll be alright. There’s nothing else to want, except that.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please feel free to leave kudos/comments. Please feel free not to. Either way, I hope you have a lovely day!


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